


Colorado Springs (1872–1972)

by ChangeWillSaveYou



Series: No Space in This Room for Both God and Fear [2]
Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Genre: Black Lives Matter, Conflicted Ron Stallworth, Gen, Just a Lot of Talking Okay, Post-Movie, Ron's POV, Woke Daddy Sergeant Trapp, Workplace Mentorship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 19:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeWillSaveYou/pseuds/ChangeWillSaveYou
Summary: Ron's having second thoughts about his place in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Sergeant Trapp helps him regain his perspective.





	Colorado Springs (1872–1972)

Ron had the office to himself. He was sitting motionless, staring straight ahead at Flip’s empty chair, thinking about the many ways in which his life was falling apart.

Patrice, for example, was being serious when she called Ron the enemy. That shouldn’t have taken Ron by surprise — Patrice always was a no-exceptions kind of woman, right from the very first night they met — but it still stung.

His dad, in El Paso, really was sick, just like in the cover story he’d crafted with Flip. It was cancer, and he was probably going to die from it.

And then there was the jay-oh-bee. Ron was back on narcotics investigation, which seemed like his big break only months earlier, but now felt unimportant at best and actively destructive at worst. Nixon invented the war on drugs to undermine the strength of black organizations and the anti-war movement, is what Patrice had told him. Ron didn’t know if he believed that, but it was a true fact that eight out of eight files on his desk at that moment were black boys and men.

It was late, and Ron would have bet he was the last one in intelligence still at the station. When Sergeant Trapp rounded the corner into the office, he looked just as surprised to see Ron as Ron was to see him.

“Hey! Ron,” Sarge greeted him. “Burning the midnight oil?”

“Paperwork,” Ron said, gesturing at the stack on his desk. In fact, he hadn’t been doing anything with the files, and should have left hours earlier, but Sarge didn’t need to know that.

“I can take those back to the records room, if you’re done with them? Save you the trip.”

Busted. “No, I’m — still working on them.”

Sarge looked at him then, really looked at his face, and Ron felt exposed, like Sarge could see that his head wasn’t in the game, hadn’t been for the last week. He was well aware of his position as the rookie in the room, the one whose sole lead investigation had abruptly been canceled, and if budget cuts were as severe as the Chief said, then the last cat in the door is the first cat out, and the Chief always seemed to treat him like an experiment besides.

But what Sarge said was, “The files will still be here Monday.”

“Thanks, boss,” Ron said. He got up from his desk and went to grab his jacket from the coat rack.

“Ron,” Sarge said. “Come have a drink with me.” It really was late, and Sarge attempted to push down a yawn even as he said it, which made Ron smile.

“It’s not past your bedtime?”

“Oh, ha ha,” said Sarge. “No, I mean it. I want a beer, and I think you could use one too.”

Ron thought that there were a lot of things he needed and a drink with the boss wasn’t at the top of the list. He wanted to decline, but he was being kicked out of the office, and the thought of going home alone was what had kept him at his desk doing nothing in the first place.

“All right,” Ron said.

It was already November and the night air was frigid. Although the bar was only a block away, Ron was shivering by the time they made it inside. It was a cop bar, obviously, proximity to the station ensuring a steady turnover of officers coming off shift. Just as obvious, Ron was the only black person there.

“It’s not like Texas,” Sarge said.

“What?” Ron asked.

“The cold.”

“Ah. Yeah. It’s damn cold,” Ron agreed.

Sarge took a seat almost at the end of the bar. Ron followed and sat beside him, wedged between Sarge and the wall. There was a fireplace embedded in the wall, and the heat traveled through the bricks and warmed his shoulder and side where he leaned against them. It felt amazing.

“I’m sorry about your investigation,” Sarge told Ron.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been making inquiries, calling everybody I can think of. Who was the government spook who gave you the tip-off about the C-4? Exactly how was he following your progress? Who pulled the plug on the op and why did they want all records destroyed? You may be unsurprised to find out: no one knows anything.”

“Skulduggery,” said Ron. He tried to remember the other funny words Jimmy had used, but they weren’t coming to him. Sarge kept talking, but Ron wasn’t exactly listening. Ron’s body was warm, the cold beer tasted just right, and the creature comfort of it was beginning to make Ron feel softer.

He was remembering how he had been moved to raise his fist when Kwame Ture told a packed house of college students to remove the poisonous lie from their minds: _black people can’t do whatever white people can do, unless a white person helps_.

He was remembering how he had gone to the Chief and asked for the right white man.

He was remembering the time Flip showed him how to fill out a cash requisition for special operational incidentals, how he’d laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe when Flip insisted that Ron refer to it as _the_ Klan hood and not _your_ Klan hood.

Sergeant Trapp suddenly looked furious. He turned around and stalked down the bar to exchange words with a group of tanked-up patrolmen. In a minute he came back and sat down again, while the patrolmen beat it out the door, leaving their unfinished drinks behind.

“What was that about?” Ron wanted to know.

“I wouldn’t repeat it,” Sarge said primly.

Ron was pretty sure he knew what Sergeant Trapp wouldn’t repeat, and he wasn’t feeling warm enough that he’d lost all his self-preservation instinct. “Aw, Sarge, you didn’t have to do that. The last thing I need is more trouble on the force.”

“That’s not a choice for you to make. No. The last thing you need is coworkers who make their bigotry your problem. And the absolute last thing you need is a boss who doesn’t enforce your right to a civil work environment.”

“Chief Bridges told me I’m on my own.”

“Oh, did he? Well, he’s wrong.”

There was something Ron wanted to say, had wanted to say for the last week, but he knew it was a bad idea to say it. Sergeant Trapp was a good boss, a good man, even, but he might take it as an accusation, and then what?

He’d find something else. Maybe use that college degree. Ron blurted it all out, stumbling over his words.

“Sarge, even if — I mean — _we did a good job_ , we saved lives, and what happened, they shut us down. So even if we do everything we can to clean this place up, stop the race-based traffic stops and the harrassment and we, we, cops stop shooting us in the street — even if we do all that, how can we be sure anything we do is the right thing, when we don’t know who’s calling the shots? Like in narcotics. It’s too easy to get it twisted.”

Ron thought it might have been the most incoherent thing he’d ever said. He was ready to stand up, apologize, and leave. But Sarge was looking at Ron appraisingly, nodding slowly. “You’re asking, is it possible to work for racial justice within a system controlled by a white power structure.”

Now that was a response Ron didn’t expect. “I — sir? Have you been talking to Patrice?”

Sarge smiled at that. “Not exactly. I do read her column in the student newspaper, and you can tell her that. How is she, by the way?”

Thinking about Patrice made Ron’s heart ache. He had learned important things from Patrice and her friends, not just conspiracy theories, and it made him wonder why he never engaged with the Black Student Union when he was in college. Now Patrice was done with him and his access to that community was closed off. “Not returning my calls, is how,” Ron said.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sarge did look sorry, and wasn’t that the damnedest thing. He tapped his fingers against his empty beer glass, wedding ring clicking in time.

Ron pointed at the glass. “You going to get another?”

Sarge looked at the empty glass in his hand. “I only wanted the one. Ron. The white power structure. The _establishment_. It’s America. It’s the air we breathe. Don’t wait for the revolution. It’s not coming.”

Ron thought that was a fucking depressing thing to say, but then remembered Sergeant Trapp’s view of America also included Future President David Duke.

Ron should have left it there, he knew it wasn’t a good idea to keep pushing. He wondered what Sarge had meant, when he said Ron wasn’t on his own. And there was something else weighing on him, another, heavier question, or maybe it was the same question, only less abstract. Ron knew he should have left it alone, but —

“May I ask you something?” Ron said.

“Of course.”

“How long did you know Landers was a bad cop, and how did he still have a job after you found out?”

That _was_ an accusation, and it was out now, and Ron could do nothing but wait to catch his punishment.

But Sarge said, “Touché.” He looked grim, not angry.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” Ron heard himself saying. He hadn’t intended to say it, and he didn’t know why he did. Had he been worrying about getting fired, or had he been hoping for it?

Sarge shook his head. “Ron, I’ve been a cop for a long time. Twenty-five years in Denver. Two in Colorado Springs. Landers isn’t even the worst cop I know, and most of those guys still have jobs. I can tell you how it works around here, all right? Hear me out. Then you can tell me whether you want to stay. I’ll respect your decision.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. You recognize the playbook. Lying, witness intimidation, discrediting the victim.”

“Yes.”

“In civil rights cases, if a witness isn’t sufficiently intimidated, the Klan provides backup. Then there’s the judge. It’s nearly impossible to get a warrant for the arrest of a cop. That’s how it works. But we took down Landers. Two people deserve the credit for that. Ms. Patrice Dumas, for continuing to speak out, no matter what. And you, for keeping Patrice alive.”

Ron thought Sergeant Trapp was forgetting that Ron had also needed the cooperation of practically the entire intelligence office and a dozen squad cars besides. He vaguely wondered what Patrice would think about a white cop speaking respectfully of her.

“Ron,” Sarge continued. “You took on the Klan and the C.S.P.D. at the same time, and you won. Would Patrice have trusted any of us enough to wear a wire, other than you? Not a chance.”

“Not a chance,” Ron echoed. That was the absolute truth.

Sarge sought eye contact. “You’re a good cop,” he said.

And then he said something else. It was something that Ron needed, but hadn’t even considered asking for, because what did Ron have to complain about? Nothing happened. It was a misunderstanding. Things like that happened to people like him all the time, and Ron was on his own.

“Flip told me about Myers and Brickhouse. I encourage you to make them your next project.”

Myers and Brickhouse. The cops outside Patrice’s house. Who believed a terrorist bomber’s word above his, who pointed their weapons at him as he told them, repeatedly, that he was also a cop, an undercover cop, and they could find the proof of that _in his pocket_ — but they found all the proof they wanted written on his skin, so he kept his hands in the air, and they beat his unresisting body with a stick and crushed his face into the pavement until Flip came to save him, and when Ron closed his eyes he could still see Flip like an avenging angel running to his side.

Sergeant Trapp knew about that, and he wasn’t telling Ron that it was his job to _take a lot of guff_ or _turn the other cheek_. He was telling Ron that he deserved better, and _the good black people here in Colorado Springs_ deserved better, and it was his job to be a cop. To protect and serve.

Ron had the strangest feeling of something resolving inside him. If he tried to describe it, he would have said it was like when you take your sunglasses off after a long day, and you notice the brightness of the colors all around you, and it’s unexpected because you never noticed they were missing. It was warm in the bar, against the brick wall, near the fireplace, and Ron was very glad he hadn’t gone home alone.

“One more thing,” Sarge said, sliding his empty glass down the bar, along with Ron’s. “This city took one hundred years to find you. Until we manage to get even one more minority hire, and I hope it doesn’t take until the bicentennial, you’re in a unique position. If you have a problem, let me know. I will always believe you and I’ll always have your back. That’s a promise.”

“Okay,” Ron said.

Sergeant Trapp had to go then, something about needing to collect his daughter from the movies down the street. Ron pulled on his jacket, zipped it over his sweatshirt and long necklace, and followed him out the door.

“See you on Monday, boss,” Ron said.

“Good,” Sarge told him. “Drive safe, now.”

By himself, on the short walk back to the police station parking lot, Ron couldn’t help himself. He put up his hands and kung fu fought the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> This little movie ate my brain. I’m planning a third part to this series, but let’s be real, I’m a grown-ass adult who’s never attempted to write fiction before, so there are no guarantees.


End file.
